


Fox Fire

by owlbsurfinbird



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Bedtime Stories, Fairy Tale Elements, Fantasy, Fluff, M/M, Magical Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-26
Updated: 2014-11-26
Packaged: 2018-02-27 03:15:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2676965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlbsurfinbird/pseuds/owlbsurfinbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who calls the foxes near Hathaway's heart?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fox Fire

His tattoo itched.

James dried his skin with a borrowed towel, trying not to think of the discerning look Robbie had given him.

“You do much swimming on your ‘not a pilgrimage’?” Robbie said. But the real question he didn’t seem to be able to ask still hung between them. “When did you get that tattoo? Why foxes?”

+++

Once upon a time...

Young James scratched the spot on his chest beneath his left shoulder.

“Scratching will make it worse, love.” His mum put lotion on a flannel and left a pink swath of calamine beneath his pajama top. “Does that feel better?”

He rubbed the fabric. His pajamas stuck to the lotion on his skin in a way that made him uncomfortable. The whole idea of being marked, of being different, made him uncomfortable. He wouldn’t be able to take off his shirt until he was much older, his mum said. People would ask silly questions that were none of their business, his mum said. Best not to think about it, his mum said.

His mum said a great many things trying to comfort him the night he discovered he had been marked as a fox. But the only thing that stuck, the only thing that was real and true was that he was different.

He could never forget that he was different.

The mark of the fox had appeared in his family for generations. A wary bargain struck by a witch in the guise of a fox and a hunter on the grounds of the Crevecoeur estate.

“Someday,” said his mother, her eyes shining with love, “perhaps your fox will find the heart of another. And your fox won’t be alone.” Near her shoulder were two foxes, he knew.

“Why is one going the other direction?”

She smiled sadly. “Sometimes hearts don’t race in the same direction, love. That’s all.” She had patted the quilt, tucking him in. She cupped his face with her palm. “Sweet bonny lad. That’ll never happen to you.”

And it hadn’t. His fox ran alone. He thought it would always be so.

He thought being a priest would suit a solitary fox. But it didn’t.

So he went on. Became a copper.

And then his skin had burned as if touched by the flames of the fire in Jericho, as if something would spring forth. He waited. Over the following months, he had an ‘office romance’ with a co-worker, but he knew, even before she left, that she wasn’t the one. His skin barely reacted to her presence.

It was her leaving that made his shoulder redden and itch. Her leaving was spark to smoking tinder. It smoldered.

An outline formed the night she left. This fox ran in the same direction.

As time wore on, the outline of the fox grew more pronounced. He took its comforting presence for granted even as he wondered, “Who is calling to my heart? Who goes in the same direction as I do?”

And he waited.

One day it all made sense. Racing through a marketplace after a killer, falling, possibly jabbed by a poisoned syringe. Blue eyes meeting his—Robbie’s voice asking if he was all right, the touch of Robbie's hand.

James felt the foxes on his shoulder leap into flame—as if a boundary had been crossed.

_So this is the heart calling to mine? Couldn’t be. No. Robbie? No._

He arranged for a short holiday away, hoping the image of the other fox would fade.

It can't be Robbie, he thought. It's just wish fulfillment, he thought. He couldn't love someone like me, he thought.

But the other fox didn’t fade. It was as if the foxes still traveled together. It gave him hope.

Only to have that hope wrested away from him when he returned. While he was gone Robbie’s heart had been trapped by another.

It wasn't unexpected. But it hurt.

James waited for the second fox to fade. Willed the second fox to fade.

It didn’t.

He decided then that he would have to get further away. He’d take a long walk. He would force the other fox to leave that spot above--and in--his heart.

He walked and walked. And in the end, the fox remained. Running alongside as if it had always been there and always would be.

He gave in and returned to a land where he could protect this fox who had captured his heart.

+++

“I’m sorry. About you and Laura,” James said. And he was. But only a little. Robbie and Laura remained friends. It was as if everything was back to normal.

Except it wasn’t.

The foxes on his shoulder burned as if trying to run, as if trying to hide.

He’d taken up swimming again, trying to quench the fire. It was all he thought about--Robbie's heart calling to his own. And the man had no idea how James burned.

Today Robbie wanted to join him. A workout, he said. Good for me heart, he said. It’ll be good for both of us, he said.

Coming along with you whether you like it or not, he said.

James wondered if the fox fire on his chest would turn the water to clouds of steam.

Robbie nodded at the swimming pool. “I’ll be a minute. Go on ahead.”

The water was cool against James' skin. It would take a lap or two to warm up. He swam lazily. Then, noticing that Robbie was in the lane beside him, he picked up the pace.

Robbie matched him, stroke for stroke, building speed. Racing alongside him.

The water crashed around James' ears, his form deteriorated as he pushed and pushed to keep up with the man moving in the same direction in the water by his side.

Robbie was ahead of him by a reach, waiting at the pool edge.

“Waiting long?” James panted, shaking the water from his face.

And then he stared at Robbie's chest.

Above Robbie’s heart two foxes were seared into his flesh.

“Ah, James,” Lewis smiled fondly, reaching to trace the matching foxes that ran in the same direction on Hathaway’s chest, “I’ve been waiting for years.”

And they lived happily ever after.


End file.
